hi everyone,
after a very thourough review of these forums and all the documentation for pbdos3.5, i decided to start this thread as a place to try to summarize and clarify a few tricky issues concerning serial communications. there have been many and varied threads concerning various issues in the past, but i think this topic needs to be well condensed and in the end turned into a faq for future generations (to laugh at or forget
). i see three main categories of interest:
1. reliable operation under dos, win9x, winnt, win2k, & winxp.
2. reliable operation in spite of variations in 'standard' hardware, especially when dealing with dumb devices flooding/sticking com ports (eg. gps's).
3. summary of available comm libraries, utilities, helpers, etc. , and also of available information (preferably free) on these topics.
so come one and all and put in your two cent's worth. i will be working on summarizing what i have found so far, and would gladly turn the results into a faq when it's all over.
here are a few of the links that i found so far to prior threads in the forum:
serial interface problems - powerbasic forums
com problem ! - powerbasic forums
why in vdm a com program do not work? - powerbasic forums
tsr programms - powerbasic forums
serial activity stops - powerbasic forums
powerbasic multiport serial support - powerbasic forums
why am i doing this?
i write the in-house data collection / processing software that our small hydrographic survey company needs to cope with our eclectic equiptment mix and our strange jobs. i spent many years plauged with problems in m$ qb4. when i finally looked i found powerbasic 3.5 (hooray) to solve many of my problems. but i can now see clearly a few common and not-so-obvious issues involved in carefully dealing with the os/hardware environment, which are at least as important as the programming language chosen (duh). so when i was perusing these forums i realised that a proper summary of this topic was due, this information being the necessary counterpart to reliable operation, especially across the diverse platforms that are the home and calling of pbdos. i have not found this info all together in one place yet, and i hope that in putting it together any last details will be remembered/addressed/included. i didn't want to start coding/recoding at random only to encounter the same ambiguous problems agian. my next project is data collection from a digital sounder that runs 9600,n,8,1 on 2 wires, tx and grnd, merged with positions from either gps or transit+edm, displayed on a moving map with a running depth display. the sounder runs about 6 * 10 char 'pings' per second, always on. must run either in dos or under win9x. data loss is absolutely unacceptable, so i must do it right the first time. my initial tests with qb4 a year back would stick the com port sometimes in dos, loose them in win9x. etc. etc. etc...
------------------
what can go wrong will go wrong.
anything can go wrong.
what hasn't?!?!
[this message has been edited by criss french (edited december 08, 2001).]
after a very thourough review of these forums and all the documentation for pbdos3.5, i decided to start this thread as a place to try to summarize and clarify a few tricky issues concerning serial communications. there have been many and varied threads concerning various issues in the past, but i think this topic needs to be well condensed and in the end turned into a faq for future generations (to laugh at or forget

1. reliable operation under dos, win9x, winnt, win2k, & winxp.
2. reliable operation in spite of variations in 'standard' hardware, especially when dealing with dumb devices flooding/sticking com ports (eg. gps's).
3. summary of available comm libraries, utilities, helpers, etc. , and also of available information (preferably free) on these topics.
so come one and all and put in your two cent's worth. i will be working on summarizing what i have found so far, and would gladly turn the results into a faq when it's all over.
here are a few of the links that i found so far to prior threads in the forum:
serial interface problems - powerbasic forums
com problem ! - powerbasic forums
why in vdm a com program do not work? - powerbasic forums
tsr programms - powerbasic forums
serial activity stops - powerbasic forums
powerbasic multiport serial support - powerbasic forums
why am i doing this?
i write the in-house data collection / processing software that our small hydrographic survey company needs to cope with our eclectic equiptment mix and our strange jobs. i spent many years plauged with problems in m$ qb4. when i finally looked i found powerbasic 3.5 (hooray) to solve many of my problems. but i can now see clearly a few common and not-so-obvious issues involved in carefully dealing with the os/hardware environment, which are at least as important as the programming language chosen (duh). so when i was perusing these forums i realised that a proper summary of this topic was due, this information being the necessary counterpart to reliable operation, especially across the diverse platforms that are the home and calling of pbdos. i have not found this info all together in one place yet, and i hope that in putting it together any last details will be remembered/addressed/included. i didn't want to start coding/recoding at random only to encounter the same ambiguous problems agian. my next project is data collection from a digital sounder that runs 9600,n,8,1 on 2 wires, tx and grnd, merged with positions from either gps or transit+edm, displayed on a moving map with a running depth display. the sounder runs about 6 * 10 char 'pings' per second, always on. must run either in dos or under win9x. data loss is absolutely unacceptable, so i must do it right the first time. my initial tests with qb4 a year back would stick the com port sometimes in dos, loose them in win9x. etc. etc. etc...
------------------
what can go wrong will go wrong.
anything can go wrong.
what hasn't?!?!
[this message has been edited by criss french (edited december 08, 2001).]
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